HYDERABAD, Sept 20: The Sindh National Front chief Mumtaz Ali Bhutto said on Thursday that it was high time Gen Pervez Musharraf quit power after witnessing people’s referendum against him during lawyers’ movement for the reinstatement of the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Mr Bhutto said in answer to queries at the “Meet the Press” programme at the press club that the announcement of schedule for presidential elections was a joke and just a constitutional formality to prolong Musharraf’s rule.He said that the government had proved helpless in its war against Al Qaeda and militants. An army man was trained to fight to the last bullet but they were surrendering to militants by the hundreds and being held hostages, he said.

Mr Bhutto said that the government was desperately trying to enter into deals with political parties to save itself and had forced into exile one leader and invited the other to return and extend it lease of life.

To a question about the possibility of a coalition government of PPP and MQM in Sindh in near future, he said that the blood of innocent people had flowed in the streets of Sindh in 1988 and more blood would flow now if PPP and MQM formed government in Sindh.

About the murder of Mir Murtaza Bhutto he said very reluctantly that it was an irony that Ms Benazir Bhutto had not taken any action even against the murderers of her own father.

When he was a caretaker chief minister of the province he had reopened Mir Murtaza’s case and appointed a joint investigation team comprising officials of law enforcing agencies and a senior police officer from Punjab. The evidence gathered by the team pointed to Asif Ali Zardari, he said.

He claimed that a day before the murder of Mir Murtaza Bhutto a high level meeting was held at Chief Minister’s House where a conspiracy was hatched to eliminate Mir Murtaza.

Another inquiry conducted by Nasir Aslam Zahid had also proved that Murtaza was killed by police on the orders received from above. If Ms Bhutto and her husband were innocent why then were they running away from cases, he asked.

He expressed doubt about the success of APDM struggle and said those who were talking about the restoration of democracy should know that democracy was unthinkable without granting complete provincial autonomy and sovereignty to provinces.